United States
Hong KongThe Twenty-Eighth Edition, and what changed on 1 September 2025
The Twenty-Eighth Edition of Competencies and Skills Required for Teacher Certification in Florida is incorporated into Rule 6A-4.0021 and took effect on 1 September 2025. It replaced the Twenty-Seventh Edition, which the rule applied from 1 January 2023 to 31 August 2025. Section 82 is the General Knowledge Test.
Editions matter here in a way they do not for most examinations, because the edition is named inside the rule with a start date attached. Rule 6A-4.0021 applied the Twenty-Seventh Edition between 1 January 2023 and 31 August 2025, and applies the Twenty-Eighth Edition from 1 September 2025.
Two consequences. The current edition is the one to study. And study material written before that date is describing a document the rule no longer applies.
Where to find your bit of it
- Publication
- Competencies and Skills Required for Teacher Certification in Florida, Twenty-Eighth Edition
- Your section
- Section 82, General Knowledge Test
- Effective
- 1 September 2025
- Status
- Incorporated by reference into Rule 6A-4.0021 and part of the rule
- Covers
- 10 competencies and 57 skills, plus 1 competency and 11 skills for the essay
The publication covers every Florida certification field, so it is much larger than the part you need. Section 82 is the General Knowledge Test, and it is published separately as its own PDF on the Department's site. That is the file to download.
What the edition change did and did not do
We are going to be careful here. We hold the Twenty-Eighth Edition's Section 82 and we do not hold the Twenty-Seventh, so we cannot give you a line-by-line diff and we are not going to guess at one. What we can tell you is what the rule does: it names a new publication, gives it an effective date, and applies it from that date onward.
Anyone publishing a confident list of what changed between editions either holds both documents or is inventing it. Ask which.
FLDOE's Test Structure document and its Maximum Percentages table are both effective 1 January 2026, and the percentages table was updated on 2 February 2026. So the competencies changed on one date and the structure and passing-percentage documents on another. When you check whether material is current, check both.
How to tell whether study material is current
- Does it name the Twenty-Eighth Edition, or any edition at all?
- Does it describe four subtests registered and passed separately, at USD 32.50 each?
- Does it give a single overall pass percentage for the test? If so, put it down
- Does it quote the published maximum percentages as maximums rather than as fixed thresholds?
The third item is the fastest tell. There is no combined score and no overall percentage for the General Knowledge Test, because a candidate at 68% across the board has passed English Language Skills and Mathematics and failed Reading. Material that quotes one number for the whole paper has not read the source.
Why the Department reissues editions at all
Subsection (7)(gg) of the rule requires the Commissioner to review the passing score for each General Knowledge subtest, each subject area examination and the professional education test at least once every five years, and to decide whether to recommend a change to the State Board. Competencies get revisited on a similar rhythm. The examination is meant to move with what Florida expects of a beginning teacher.
Our opinion: this is one of the better-run certification syllabi we have read, precisely because the change process is public and dated. It is also one of the least readable, because a rule is written for administrators and a candidate has to do the translation. Both things are true.
What this means for our own material
Everything we publish for this examination is built against Section 82 of the Twenty-Eighth Edition and against FLDOE's Test Structure document effective 1 January 2026. Where a figure is ours rather than the Department's - the split of questions within a subtest, for instance, or a readiness target - we say so on the page rather than in a footer.
The concession that goes with that: we verified this material on 6 September 2026, and a rule can be amended at any time. If you are reading this a long way after that date, check the effective dates on the Department's own documents before trusting ours.
Common questions
What is the Twenty-Eighth Edition of the FTCE competencies?
It is the current edition of Competencies and Skills Required for Teacher Certification in Florida, incorporated by reference into Rule 6A-4.0021 and effective 1 September 2025. Section 82 covers the General Knowledge Test and is published as its own PDF.
When did the Twenty-Seventh Edition stop applying?
The rule applied it between 1 January 2023 and 31 August 2025, with the Twenty-Eighth Edition taking effect on 1 September 2025. Study material written before that date describes an edition the rule no longer applies to your examination.
What changed between the editions?
We hold Section 82 of the Twenty-Eighth Edition and not the Twenty-Seventh, so we will not publish a comparison we cannot source. The rule itself simply names the new publication and gives it an effective date without listing changes.
Is my older FTCE study book still usable?
Partly. Grammar, reading comprehension and arithmetic do not change. What goes stale is the structure, the fees, the passing standards and the competency wording, and those are exactly the parts people rely on a book for. Check the current documents for anything procedural.
How often does Florida review the passing scores?
Rule 6A-4.0021(7)(gg) requires the Commissioner to review the passing score for each General Knowledge subtest, each subject area examination and the professional education test at least once every five years, and to decide whether to recommend a change to the State Board.